When we left off, our crew was attending to a 51 year old female who had almost passed out in a stadium tunnel during a college football game. We received a few questions as to the type of football, which could be important to the diagnosis, so we will clarify that this was an American Football game.

Our crew had found her to be hypotensive, first bradycardic and then tachycardic, with concerning changes on the 12-Lead. A nasal cannula at 4 L/min was initiated and they established bilateral IV's and were rapidly infusing nomal saline to restore perfusion.

Let's take a look at the initial rhythm strip:

The initial rhythm strip shows a narrow complex tachycardia at ~130 bpm, without clear P-waves. Retrograde P-waves can be seen in numerous complexes T-waves, leading to a presumptive diagnosis of a junctional tachycardia.

The longer rhythm strip shows sinus complexes followed by runs of junctional tachycardia. Astute readers will note Wenckebach conduction of the retrograde P-waves!

This finding alone would be highly concerning given our patient's present condition and history, however, when we move onto the 12-Lead her diagnosis is clinched:

The initial 12-Lead ECG again shows a junctional tachycardia, with markedly hyperacute T-waves and ST-elevation in the anterior precordials with downsloping ST-depression in the inferior leads. The degree of which the T-waves tower over the R-waves in V4 is truely impressive!

The crew immediately recognized the extensive anterior wall infarct with cardiogenic shock, and given the concurrent finding of a junctional tachycardia presumed there to be gross insult to the AV nodal tissue. They placed defibrillation pads on the patient and helped the arriving crew package the patient. The patient was able to follow commands and 324 mg aspirin was given PO. After 1 liter of fluid the patient remained hypotensive and another bolus was started. Oxygen was titrated to maintain an SpO2 of >96%.

Eventually the patient stated she had some dull pressure in her chest, but otherwise denied pain or shortness of breath. An early STEMI notification was given and while enroute to a STEMI receiving center the crew ran multiple 12-Leads, capturing the evolution of the myocardial infarction.

In this 12-Lead we can clearly see periods of alternating tachycardia and bradycardia, an ominous sign given the evolving MI. V5 and V6 were removed and adjusted closer to V4 and V7 so that defibrillation pads could be placed.

The patient was taken directly to a cath lab suite and found to have a 100% occlusion of the LAD and after the placement of a stent the patient's ECG normalized and her hypotension resolved.

This case illustrates the amazing evolution of an extensive anterior myocardial infarction and highlights the role the LAD can play in AV nodal function. We hope you enjoyed these ECG's as much as we did!

Given an extensive anterior MI the crew did not feel it was necessary to check a Right Sided ECG. No adventitious lung sounds were noted. And as far as I can tell, no Trendelenberg positioning was used.

agree with the extensive anterior dx. ST elevation in almost all precordial leads along with AvL. ST depression inferiorly. not sure i would've done a right sided set, but it couldn't have hurt. ST elevation inferiorly and I would definitely do a right sided tracing. Sounds like she made out ok, but I hope some collateral circulation kicked in for the areas affected. That'll keep her from being a cardiac cripple.

Ben WallerWhy do we send so many people to a cardiac arrest?I am also a Battalion Chief in Tom's system. In addition to the AHA bullets he mentioned regarding high-quality CPR, our response is designed to provide fatigue-free CPR by sending enough people so that no one does CPR for more than 2 consecutive minutes. As for science, we believe strongly in it, but we also…
2016-12-08 11:29:19

Vince DiGiulioNo, doubling the paper speed will not reveal hidden P-wavesGreat tip! It's not much of an option prehospital, but one more thing I'll do when I'm in the ED and a patient has persistent tachycardia is look at the graphic trend of the patient's heart rate. Reentrant tachycardias will show a stable horizontal line (steady rate), often with a fairly abrupt onset/offset, while sinus…
2016-12-07 06:58:16

Vince DiGiulio59 Year Old Female: Intermittent Head Pain (Conclusion)Thanks! There's a couple of reasons why V7-9 might have been negative here: 1) Not all "inferoposterior" STEMI's show ST-elevation in V7-V9. Sometimes the ST-depression we see in V2 and V3 is reciprocal to the inferior STEMI and not really caused by posterior injury. 2) You'll notice that there is only subtle ST-depression in V3…
2016-12-07 06:55:27

Cardiac Care Show - Episode 1: Mechanical CPR - ECG Medical TrainingAdvanced Airway Management – Should Paramedics Be Intubating?[…] in the Resuscitation group on Facebook and the #FOAMed community on Twitter. Alongside tracheal intubation, response times, and fire-based EMS, this is one of the most controversial topics in prehospital […]
2016-12-04 18:26:57